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Digital Tweed: Mapping the Terrain of Online Education

Two Sloan-C reports provide both firm definitions for and hard data about the numbers of students involved in online education.

Like so many things in education and the academic community, much of the (sometimes
polite, sometimes passionate) conversation about big issues is often driven
by opinion and epiphany, rather than data and evidence. Certainly, the decade-long
discussions on and off campus about distance and online education, fall into
this mode. All (or at least many) of us have fixed and firm opinions about the
efficacy and quality of online and distance education, and the impact of these
programs for students and institutions.

“Online education is now clearly part of the evolving, 21st century landscape of American higher education.”

Consequently, it is useful and refreshing to find informative reports with
credible data that help map the still somewhat uncharted territory of online
and distance learning in American higher education. The November 2004 Sloan
Consortium (Sloan-C) Report, “Entering the Mainstream,” coupled
with the Consortium’s September 2003 report, “Sizing the Opportunity”
(both available at www.sloan-c.org),
bring timely, informative data to the occasionally contentious conversations
about online and distance education. (Sloan-C, a consortium of institutions
and organizations committed to quality online education, receives financial
support from The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; www.sloan.org.)

The two Sloan-C reports provide both firm definitions for and hard data about
the numbers of students involved in online education. As defined by Sloan-C,
an online course is one “where most [80 percent] or all of the content
is delivered online” and “typically involves no face-to-face meetings.”
Some 1.92 million students were enrolled in at least one online course as of
fall 2003, up almost 20 percent from 1.6 million in Fall 2002. Sloan-C projected
the Fall 2003 online course enrollment numbers would increase by a third to
2.63 million students for Fall 2004.

Not surprisingly, the Sloan-C data reveal that public and private-for-profit
institutions are more likely to offer online courses than private colleges and
universities. But much of the variation can be explained as a function of mission
and markets: Many private liberal arts colleges (i.e., baccalaureate institutions)
may offer what Sloan-C defines as Web-facilitated or blended/hybrid courses
(courses with both “traditional” and online content that are still
structured around traditional, face-to-face class sessions), and which serve
their largely residential undergraduate populations. In contrast, both public
and for-profit institutions find that online courses respond to both mission
mandates (access and training for public institutions) and market opportunities
(new or underserved markets, as well as revenue opportunities for all sectors).

These data confirm that online education (single courses or complete degree
programs) is now clearly part of the evolving, 21st century landscape of American
higher education.

Beyond the enrollment data, the Sloan-C reports provide important information
about how chief academic officers assess the role and value of online education
for their institutions. Just over half of the 1,170 respondents participating
in the 2004 Sloan-C survey, typically chief academic officers, agree that “online
education is critical to long-term [institutional] strategy.” In contrast,
just 12.3 percent strongly disagree (23.3 percent among private institutions).
Similarly, just two-fifths (40.6 percent) of the survey respondents strongly
agree that “students are at least as satisfied with an online course”
as compared to a “traditional” course (highest in private, for-profit
institutions: 64.1 percent; lowest in private institutions, at 28 percent).

Asked to compare learning outcomes, roughly half (50.6 percent) of the Sloan-C
survey respondents seem to feel that learning outcomes in online education are
“about the same” as in traditional, face-to-face courses. Almost
two-fifths (38.5 percent) believe current online offerings are inferior to traditional
courses, while a tenth (11 percent) believe online to be superior. Perhaps not
surprisingly, academic officers in private/for-profit institutions seem more
positive about learning outcomes than their peers in other sectors: 82.6 percent
view current online courses to be the same as or superior to traditional classes,
compared to 75.4 percent in public institutions and 43.8 percent in private
institutions.

Interestingly, but perhaps not surprising, academic officers across all sectors
believe that the quality of online courses will improve over the next three
years: Almost a third (30.5 percent) believe that online courses will be superior
to traditional, classroom-based courses in three years, up from a tenth (11
percent) who view online courses as superior today. Officials in private/for-profit
institutions are most optimistic about the opportunity to enhance the quality
and outcomes of online courses: 58 percent see outcomes in online courses as
being superior to in-class offerings in three years, compared to 37.5 percent
in public institutions and just 20.9 percent in private institutions.

Admittedly, I’ve drawn selectively from the Sloan-C data, which is snapshot
of the landscape of online learning. The Sloan-C data document past and prospective
growth, and confirm that online courses and programs are now, without question,
core to institutional strategy across all sectors. Too, the Sloan-C data suggest
some critical “reach & grasp” issues in the area of student
satisfaction, course quality, and learning outcomes. Although quality has always
been difficult to define, let alone measure, academic officers participating
in the Sloan-C survey acknowledge that online (and by extension, distance) education
generally “has some distance” to go before it provides comparable
outcomes to more traditional, classroom-based offerings. Future editions of
the Sloan-C survey will certainly help those of us in the campus community who
are interested in online learning understand the evolving terrain, tracking
numbers for growth while also addressing the important nuances that involve
quality and outcomes.